In 1922, Carpenter graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree and entered industry, rising through key managerial positions with the Dupont Viscoloid Company from 1927 through 1933, and the Remington Arms Company from 1933 through 1947.
As vice president and assistant general manager of the Remington Arms Company during World World War II, he guided the company"s expansion to meet the Allied Forces" ammunition needs. In 1948 he was appointed by United States. President Harry South. Truman as the first civilian chairman of the Military Liaison Committee of the Atomic Energy Commission, where he strengthened the committee status as a civilian-military enterprise inclusive of Army, Navy and Air Force nuclear activities. Later in 1948 Carpenter was appointed by Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal as his deputy "in atomic energy matters".
In 1948 Carpenter was appointed by President Truman to be the Chairman of the national Munitions Board, established by the National Security Acting of 1947 to coordinate industrial matters affecting the National Military Establishment, including procurement, production, and distribution functions.
Carpenter returned to DuPont as General Manager of the Film Department in 1949, and worked there until his retirement in 1963. The Carpenter Collection at the Hagley Museum and Library documents his life and career through photographs, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, pamphlets and letters.
Carpenter was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on September 24, 1899. He was a first cousin of Walter South. Carpenter, Junior., and Robert Ruliph Morgan Carpenter., Manuscripts and Archives Department.
In 1947 he was appointed a member of the Industrial Advisory Group to the Atomic Energy Commission, where he advocated wider industrial participation in the developing atomic energy enterprise.
